


Exit stage left

by FiresideGuitar (Defy_them)



Series: Jumping into the timejump [1]
Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Abby (mentioned) - Freeform, Angst, Blood, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Jesse (mentioned) - Freeform, Joel (mentioned) - Freeform, Lev (mentioned), Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, coping with loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defy_them/pseuds/FiresideGuitar
Summary: Ellie and Dina recover from the fight with Abby in the theatre. 200% of your recommended daily intake of hurt/comfort. Very soft, then very sad. Rated T for graphic descriptions of injury and blood.[complete]
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: Jumping into the timejump [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910350
Comments: 68
Kudos: 247





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, bless Naughty Dog for timejumping straight from the theatre fight to “they are both alive and living on a farm”, my anxiety thanks you. But I did want to write this missing scene.

_“Don’t ever let me see you again.”_

Blood streamed from Ellie’s battered nose into her mouth, settling at the back of her throat. She coughed a couple of times, attempting to clear it. Between shallow ragged breaths she heard the receding footsteps of Abby and the boy as they left the room. She turned her head to the side, tears mixed with blood sliding down her face.

“Dina…” she croaked, her breath hitching as she took in Dina’s prone form lying on the plywood boards. With a groan, Ellie started to roll over, meaning to crawl towards her. But in the moment, she forgot about her arm — as she went to put her weight on it, a lightning flash of pain shot up the length of her arm, and her world turned to black as Ellie’s head hit the ground.

\---

She came to, face down on the dusty theatre floor. With a massive effort, Ellie cranked open an eyelid that was threatening to swell shut. She found herself in the situation she had never wanted to be in ever again — staring at the bruised and bloody face of a loved one, lying unmoving on the floor. She shook her head, trying to keep the visions of that basement and Joel that were threatening to overwhelm her at bay. This time, no-one’s knee was in her back, pinning her to the floor. This time, no-one was standing over them with a golf club. This time — Ellie held her breath, squinting her eyes so they would focus on Dina and make sure this wasn’t a trick of the light — she could see that Dina’s chest was rising and falling with shallow breaths.

She turned, rolling to the left this time to favour her good arm, and started to drag herself across the room. The cuts and bruises littered across her body screamed for her attention as she moved, but the only thing she allowed her mind to focus on was getting to Dina.

Ellie finally reached her, gingerly placing a hand on Dina’s arm. “Hey. Dina, hey. Wake up.” After a few gentle shakes, she was rewarded with a small groan as Dina’s eyes fluttered open. 

“Don’t-don’t try to move,” she whispered urgently as Dina’s eyes widened in a panic. She caught Dina’s arm as she started to lift it, gently but firmly holding it to the ground before she could thrash around. “I’m here, it’s okay. They’re gone, it’s just me.”

Dina’s eyes roamed frantically before finally locking onto Ellie’s. As deep brown met blazing green Dina stilled, took a deep breath in, and nodded her understanding. Ellie released her grip on Dina’s wrist, moving her hand to instead support Dina’s back as she slowly rolled to her side. Dina stopped when she managed to get an arm underneath her, propping her up as she stared at the arrow pierced through her shoulder.

“Ow.” Dina looked up at Ellie, a cheeky glint flickering in her eye despite the pain etched across her face. “Reckon you can give me a hand with this?”

Ellie sat back on her heels, assured at least that if Dina was able to crack jokes then she could hold her position without Ellie’s help. Miraculously, Ellie had managed to keep her backpack on during the fight. Now, she carefully eased the strap off her right shoulder, swinging it around to her front and unzipping it. She rummaged inside before pulling out the basic med kit they had brought with them from Jackson.

“My turn to patch you up,” Ellie said, unrolling the spool of surgical thread and unsheathing the curved needle. She held the thread between her teeth, raising the needle in her left hand to pass the thread through its eye. “Hardly hygienic, but...” Ellie mumbled around the thread in her mouth as she pulled it through. Dina watched without comment, glancing down at Ellie’s right arm hanging uselessly by her side. Ellie laid out the threaded needle next to two wads of gauze. “Ready?”

Dina nodded, “No, but do it anyway,” and braced herself. Ellie slid her hand down the length of the arrow shaft, ghosting over Dina’s shoulder and stopping where the tip end disappeared into her bloody shirt. She took a moment to admire the craftsmanship of the Scar boy’s arrow. The tip was forged metal, the shaft straight and free of splinters or burls. If this had been one of Ellie’s arrows, thrown together using binding, a blade, and whatever scrap of wood she could find lying nearby, this would be a far messier process.

“Okay, on three. One...t—” mid-breath and in one fluid motion, Ellie snapped off the arrowhead end as close to Dina’s shoulder as she could, then reached behind her and pulled out the arrow from the back.

“MOTHERFU-” Dina yelled, reflexively raising her hand up to clutch at her shoulder but Ellie batted it away. She ripped Dina’s shirt open from sleeve to shoulder, exposing the paired wounds, free from the arrow and now oozing blood. They moved as one, each grabbing a wad of gauze and pressing down, Ellie on the wound in Dina’s back and Dina at the one on her front.

Dina leaned against Ellie’s chest, breathing heavily as they waited for the bloodflow to slow. Ellie nuzzled Dina’s hair with the bottom of her chin and murmured reassuring words, unsure if Dina could even hear her through the pain. 

\---

Eventually, Dina’s breathing evened out, and Ellie cautiously peeled away the gauze clenched in her fist. The hole was angry, swollen and red, but blood no longer gushed from it. “I’ll do this one first, okay?” She could feel Dina nodding meekly in response into her shirt. Ellie reached down and picked up the needle, taking a deep breath in to steady her shaking hand.

It was much more difficult to maneuver the needle with her left hand. Ellie winced every time she pierced Dina’s skin, each one accompanied by a whimper from her, but eventually Ellie was tying off the last stitch in her back. 

She leaned away from Dina, moving her hand under her chin and tilting her head up. Their eyes met, and Ellie brushed away the tears she found there. “You’re doing so well. I’ll do the front one now, yeah?” Dina nodded again, angling her body so Ellie could have a clear view. She gently lifted Dina’s hand holding the gauze away from her shoulder and took her first look.

Unlike the entry wound, where the arrow had gone in cleanly, here it had torn apart Dina's skin as it sought its escape from her body. Ellie sucked in a breath as she took in the damage. At least it had also stopped bleeding. "This one might need...a few more stitches", she said flatly. In the corner of her eye, she saw Dina gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut as she got to work.

\---

The last few stitches were abysmal. Ellie's hands had started to shake again, but she had pressed on in favour of finishing quickly over making Dina agonise for even longer. Now, as she tied off the last stitch, Ellie finally let out the breath that she felt like she had been holding since starting. 

At some point during Ellie's amateur surgery Dina had drifted off. When it happened Ellie had been grateful — anything to reduce the pain that she must be in — but now she needed Dina to get up. Ellie leaned down to cut the thread with her teeth, and like Dina had done when tending to her the night before, she brushed her lips against Dina's skin in a gentle kiss. The pleasant sensation, after so many sharp stings of the needle, roused Dina from her semi-lucid state.

"All done," Ellie smiled gently, turning to return the needle to the med kit and pulling out a bandage roll in its place. She again helped Dina sit up. Placing fresh gauze on both wounds, she gently and efficiently looped the bandage around Dina's shoulder and torso to secure them. Ellie nodded at her handiwork, and finally looked up into Dina's eyes.

"Ellie," Dina looked down for a moment, nervously playing with her fingers. When she looked back up at Ellie, her expression was unreadable. "Tommy? Jesse? Are they…"

Images of her last moments in the theatre lobby flashed, unbidden, before Ellie’s eyes. Jesse, eyes glazed and vacant, expression frozen in surprise. Tommy, face down, blood splattered out from the side of his head. She was sure her face told Dina all she needed to know, but she shook her head anyway. Dina's face crumpled, and the tears from earlier returned in force. Ellie wrapped her good arm around Dina's trembling body and pulled her close as tears started to fall from her own eyes. They held onto each other as they both fell apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos & comments always appreciated  
> Long-time reader, first-time writer — please let me know what you think, I’d love to get some feedback :) I'd really like to continue this where they go out to the lobby to find Jesse and Tommy.


	2. Chapter 2

They stayed there, kneeling on the floor holding each other, for what felt like hours. Ellie gently traced small circles on Dina’s back, being careful to avoid bumping her bandaged shoulder. Dina clutched at the back of Ellie’s shirt, balling the material up in her fist. Eventually, she was the first to speak.

“So...what happened? Where is she?”

Ellie leaned back and looked into Dina’s eyes. “She...she had you, and she was about to…” Ellie paused, lightly brushing the back of her fingers against Dina’s neck. There was a hair-deep cut where Abby had held the knife to her throat. The blood that had beaded out from it had long since dried. Ellie’s nail caught the edge of the cut and she withdrew her hand. _I almost lost you_. Ellie shuddered at the thought. “Then that kid — he was the one that shot at you — said her name and...she just...let us go,” Ellie finished, staring off into the distance. She looked like she couldn’t quite believe it herself.

Dina cleared her throat. “We should…” her voice faltered, still thick with emotion. “Yeah, I know,” Ellie agreed quietly. They both knew what waited for them upstairs. Sooner or later, they knew they had to deal with it. But for now, they let the words remain unspoken. 

Ellie got up, joints protesting after sitting on the floor for so long, and offered her hand to Dina. With a groan, Ellie managed to pull Dina to her feet. Dina’s face paled, hand ghosting over her stomach as she staggered forward.

Ellie caught her elbow to stop her from falling over, mouth dropping open in alarm. “I’m okay, I’m okay, just...give it a second,” Dina said from her hunched over position. Ellie’s hand moved automatically to rub at the small of Dina’s back. After a few deep breaths, Dina swallowed and stood up straight. “It’s okay, that was just...a bit too fast for me right now.” Ellie looked down, admonishing herself for forgetting even for a second. Dina caught Ellie’s chin with her knuckle, encouraging Ellie to meet her eyes. “Really El, it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

\---

Now that they were standing, Dina could take her first proper look at Ellie. Her eyes widened. “Ellie, your arm…” The words echoed through Ellie, and for a moment she was 14 years old in an abandoned shopping mall. But it wasn’t a fresh bite mark that she saw when she looked down — this time, it was a vivid bruise that had bloomed across her arm. It was an angry thing, wrapping around her elbow and reaching halfway down her forearm. The discolouration bled through her tattoo, painting the moth’s wings a deep purple.

“Ah yeah, that...” 

“...is definitely dislocated,” Dina finished for her. She moved closer and gently picked up Ellie’s arm. Ellie winced as she inspected it carefully. “Here, I’ve got this. Hold your elbow,” she said, guiding Ellie’s other hand into position.

“Have you done this before?” Ellie asked, genuinely curious at Dina’s sudden confidence as she grasped Ellie’s wrist. “No but I uh...saw a diagram in a first aid booklet...once.” Dina replied sheepishly.

“Well excuse me if that doesn’t exactly fill me with confid-AAAARGH!” While Ellie was distracted, Dina flipped Ellie’s wrist over and sharply folded her arm towards her shoulder. There was an audible pop as the joint moved back into place. Ellie clutched at her arm and glared at her.

“Oh sorry, did you want me to count to three?” Dina asked, raising an eyebrow as she gently rotated Ellie’s arm around the joint. “You’re a dick,” Ellie threw back, “...but that’s fair.”

Ellie gingerly tested her arm out when Dina let go. “Thanks, it feels better.” And it did — she could move it somewhat freely, managing to raise her hand to her face and scratch at her cheek. Some dried blood flaked off, fluttering to the floor. But when she tried reaching towards Dina, she only managed half the distance between them before shooting pains rippled down the length of her arm. She pulled her hand back, grimacing as she rubbed at the tender muscle.

Dina caught Ellie’s scowl. “You might have fractured it too. I’m not sure,” she conceded. 

“No diagram for that one?”

Ellie held her arms up in mock surrender when Dina shot her a look. “No. And I left my x-ray machine in my other pair of jeans, so we’ll have to improvise.” 

Dina turned and started to search the room for something useful. She had only taken a few steps when she kicked something with her foot. She recognised Ellie’s switchblade as it clattered across the floor.

“Oh hey, dropped this?” she asked, slowly bending to pick it up. She turned to Ellie, who smiled when she recognised what Dina had found. “Thanks,” she said, holding her hand out expectantly. 

However, as Dina offered the knife up, she saw that it was covered in red. She pulled her hand back and looked accusingly at Ellie, scanning her up and down for overlooked cuts. “It’s okay. Not my blood,” Ellie reassured her, shrugging. Dina paused for a beat then shuddered, looking at the knife with revulsion. “Okay, give me a sec,” she said, resuming her search of the room.

As she skirted around a pile of mannequin torsos, Dina spotted some bolts of costume fabrics hung up in a neat row on the wall. She ran the flat of the blade across the length of the nearest one, removing all traces of Abby from its surface. As she held the knife up to the light to inspect it, it caught a nearby flash of blue and silver. Dina’s eyes traced the reflection to its source. _Perfect_ , she thought, pulling down the fabric and using Ellie’s switchblade to cut it into strips.

\---

When Dina returned, she spotted Ellie crouched next to shelving bearing some lighting equipment, good arm reaching underneath. Ellie stood up as she approached, holding her reclaimed shotgun. Ellie looped the shotgun strap over her shoulder, quirking an eyebrow when she saw what Dina was carrying.

“I know kids get candy when they go to the doctor, but I don’t think I was quite THIS brave…” Dina’s only reply was an exaggerated eye roll as she dropped her armful of goods on a nearby table. She picked up the item on top of the pile that had inspired Ellie’s comment — a giant prop lollipop. The stick was the thickness of her wrist, the candy as big as her head.

“While you’re cracking jokes, you might as well crack this thing too.” Ellie could tell that Dina was secretly proud of her witty reply, and allowed Dina the satisfaction of seeing her smile as she accepted the wooden lollipop. Ellie held the stick in her hands, letting her uninjured arm take the weight of the candy end. Then, in one swift movement, she brought it down over her knee. Ellie, internally debating whether to ask Dina why she needed this or share the cringeworthy pun she’d just come up with first, looked up in triumph when it snapped cleanly in half. However, whatever was going to come out of her mouth died on her lips when she saw what Dina was holding.

“Oh...oh wow.” Ellie hovered her hand over the material, instantly mesmerised. Unlike all the clothes they scavenged, this wasn’t a dull, washed-out, ragged thing. The base colour was the deepest blue Ellie had ever seen, so deep she felt like she was falling into it the longer she looked. It was a colour she had only seen in her dreams — one that she tried to mix hundreds of times when she painted, but had never been able to recreate in real life. Here, it served as the perfect background for the constellations of stars that were dusted along the fabric. They were a bright silver colour, and so ethereal that if someone told her that there was actual stardust woven through the material, Ellie wouldn’t have doubted them for a second. _Is this what silk is?_ Ellie had no idea, but she picked up a piece and it was so smooth that it almost dripped through her fingers.

Dina reached down to take the broken lollipop stick, now forgotten and hanging loosely from Ellie’s fingers. She pulled Ellie’s hand and attention away from the fabric, laying the stick along Ellie’s arm as a makeshift splint. Ellie finally figured out what Dina was doing and started to protest.

“Just for a few days, until the swelling goes down. Then we’ll know if we’re dealing with a break or not. But let’s not make it any worse in the meantime.”

Dina could tell that Ellie wasn’t happy to take her shooting arm out of action, but she lifted her other hand to hold the splint in place, signalling her consent. Dina picked up a strip of the starry fabric, tied it off at Ellie’s elbow, and started to bind the splint to her arm.

“You’re building up quite a collection, you know.” Dina observed, taking in Ellie’s ravaged arm with dismay.

“Bite...burn...” she started, continuing to loop the material around Ellie’s forearm. 

“...bruise…” she added as she covered the purpled moth. 

“...bracelet...” she breathed, brushing the Hamsa with her fingers as she reached Ellie’s wrist. 

Wordlessly, she undid its leather ties and transferred it to Ellie’s left arm before returning to the strip and winding the rest of it around Ellie’s wrist and hand. She reached behind her for another piece of fabric — this one she folded diagonally, forming a sling to nestle Ellie’s arm in. Dina moved behind her to tie it around her neck. 

Ellie could feel her making a few more adjustments to the setup, tucking the loose ends under her backpack straps, before she came back into view. Dina fussed around with the front of the sling again, and Ellie was about to tell her that it was already fine when she felt a small weight settle against her chest. 

Ellie looked down, and saw that the rocketship from her backpack was now pinned to the sling. It sat just above her heart, adrift in an ocean of stars. She looked up at Dina, who returned her tear-filled gaze and whispered, so low it was almost inaudible,

“...badge.”

\---

After another tearful embrace, they drew apart. Now that their most pressing injuries had been attended to, Ellie held Dina at arm’s length and looked her fully up and down. She took in her hunched posture, heavy bags under her eyes, and cuts on her nose and forehead. “You still look like shit,” Ellie summarised.

Dina smirked at Ellie’s assessment and mirrored it. She noted the blood, now dry, that had streamed from her nose and spread halfway down her neck. Her jeans were torn at the knees, scraped-up skin showing through the holes. She shook her head and chuckled. “Have you met you?”

Ellie’s mouth dropped open. “Hey, that’s my line!”

Dina grinned. “Alright alright, come on. The bucket from yesterday is still in the dressing room, we can at least wash this stuff off.” She paused, “unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about the rest of your face.”

Dina leaned in and captured Ellie’s lips in a kiss before she had time to think of a reply. “For something so hideous, you sure like kissing it a lot,” Ellie mumbled against her mouth. “Yeah, I guess I do,” Dina replied, resting their foreheads together for a moment and breathing deeply. Then she moved away, taking Ellie’s hand and leading them up the stairs.

\---

The mood sombered as they reached the upper floor of the backstage area. Dina glanced towards the stage door, the thick red curtain looming behind it. Ellie was thinking of what lay beyond too.

She squeezed Dina’s hand and waited for Dina to look up at her. “Hey. We'll go get them, okay? Together. Let's just sort ourselves first.” Dina inhaled deeply, then nodded. Ellie looped her arm around Dina’s shoulder and turned them towards the dressing room.

They had only taken a step when they heard a muffled thump from beyond the curtain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My recent search history has been rather interesting because of this fic. Maybe if I had gotten super-into one of those hospital drama TV shows I could have gone into this with some useful medical know-how. Alas, a wasted opportunity. But do hit me up if you ever need a dislocated elbow looked at — me and a 3 minute youtube video are at your service.
> 
> Dina didn't have the pleasure of hearing Ellie's pun, but you, dear reader, can. Ellie was going to reply "I sure can-dy". As a standalone pun it's already atrocious, but said verbally and in this context it has the extra layer of referencing Dina's nickname. I know, jokes are always funnier when you explain them.
> 
> I also wasn’t sure about Ellie fawning over the costume fabric. But then I was reading about humans and our [perception of the colour blue](https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-didn-t-see-the-colour-blue-until-modern-times-evidence-science), and it got me thinking about how the world that Ellie and Dina live in is, for the most part, one of very muted colours. I feel like as an artist, Ellie would lose her mind seeing these sorts of colours in real life.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! As always, feedback is appreciated. I think I’ve got one more chapter in me for this one.


	3. Chapter 3

Ellie pulled Dina behind the nearest bit of cover. Dina’s panicked eyes locked onto hers and Ellie held a finger to her lips. 

_Did Abby change her mind and come back?_ Ellie pulled on the strap of the shotgun, swinging it around to her waiting hand. Dina still had Ellie’s switchblade with her, which she flicked open in one smooth movement.

Ellie mentally tallied their assets: two usable arms (neither of them their dominant one), a knife, and a shotgun with — Ellie checked the chamber — a single bullet. _Yikes. Not great odds._

Ellie could only hope that Abby was suffering more from her injuries from their fight than Dina or herself. But she knew it was just wishful thinking; the fact that Abby had walked out right away, while they were left sprawled on the floor, made that very unlikely. Plus, she also had that Scar kid with her. He had already shown his deadly ability with a bow, and he had probably arrived at the theatre with more than two arrows.

No, their best option was to try and take them by surprise. Ellie peeked over the top of the fake stone wall they were crouched behind, trying to spot any movement of the heavy stage curtain. 

Just then, a long, low moan cut through the silence.

 _Okay...probably not Abby then. Shit, did the infected find a way in?_ At this point, Ellie wasn’t sure which one was worse. 

She thought of the horde in the subway system, and the station entrance directly across the road from the theatre. If Abby had left a door open when she took off, any number of infected could be in here with them. Ellie was immune, not invincible. A clicker could still tear her face off just as easily as anyone else’s.

She glanced at Dina, clutching the switchblade in an unsteady hand. If it had been Abby coming back, at least Ellie might have been able to convince her to spare Dina. The infected had slightly less interest in listening to impassioned appeals to one’s morality.

They did have to move though. When they initially scoped out the theatre, they found that the front doors and the fire escape near the control room were the only ways in and out. ‘Easily defendable’, they thought at the time. What they failed to consider was how easy that also made it to become trapped inside. Whatever was waiting for them in the auditorium, they would have to get past it in order to escape.

They stepped over the track of the heavy roller door then split up, approaching the front of the stage from opposite ends. Dina reached the curtain first, tweaking it to the side to catch a glimpse of the room beyond. Whatever she saw made her gasp, and before Ellie could ask what it was, Dina had rushed through to the other side.

\---

“Di, wha— oh my god, Tommy?!” Ellie froze when she stepped through the curtain. A gory tableau lay before her. Items scattered along the aisle allowed Ellie to mentally reconstruct Tommy’s gruesome progress before they arrived.

The carpet was stained with blood, forming a trail that started at the rear doors of the auditorium. Ellie’s eyes followed it down the centre aisle, spotting a mangled arrow lying on the carpet. Like the arrow she had wrested from Dina’s shoulder, this one had been snapped in half. The bloody trail continued below the arrow, noticeably darker and wider. Finally her eyes landed on the unmoving form of Tommy, leaning against the row of chairs closest to the stage. Dina was crouched down next to him, eyes darting between his face and Ellie’s.

“ELLIE! Help me!” Her voice finally broke through Ellie’s daze. She blinked and moved to the edge of the stage, carefully jumping down. She knelt by Dina’s side. 

“He’s still alive,” Dina said, shaking her head in disbelief. Ellie hadn’t seen him move since she had stepped into the auditorium, but she raised her fingers to Tommy’s neck and could feel a ragged pulse. 

“I don’t think they hit anything important. Well, none of the big arteries at least,” Dina said, and Ellie followed her gaze down to Tommy’s leg. The arrow wounds were still bleeding. “How can you tell? There is a lot of blood...” Ellie asked, glancing up worriedly at the darkened carpet snaking up the aisle.

“ **Arteries** carry blood **away** from the heart,” Dina recited in a sing-song voice, adding “so you’d better **move away** before it spurts at ya!”

Ellie blinked at her. “...Anne has the weirdest mnemonic devices for this stuff,” she muttered after a moment, thinking of the eccentric woman back in Jackson who ran their med clinic. She was one of those people who could talk a glass eye to sleep. Dina loved her, and whenever they crossed paths she always asked Anne to recount a war story from her time as a QZ medic. Meanwhile, the first time her patrol went wrong and Ellie found herself in the clinic, she swore that her injury had healed by the time she had escaped their conversation. Since then, she had learned to pretend to be asleep when Anne checked in on her.

“I am aware. But Anne is awesome, and you have to admit that the weird stuff sticks,” Dina shrugged. “Anyway, he’s a lucky bastard. An inch either side could have been an artery and he wouldn’t have lasted a minute. We do still need to stop the bleeding though. Here, help me with this.”

Dina had taken her belt off and wrapped it around Tommy’s thigh, but was struggling to lock in the buckle with her one good hand. Ellie leaned down and grabbed the trailing end of the belt. Between the two of them, they managed to pull the belt tight and secure it. They watched as the bloodflow slowed to a trickle.

Ellie retrieved the med kit from her backpack, evidently a hot commodity today. She had hoped they wouldn’t need it again so soon, but at least there was enough thread to do the job at hand. After Dina helped Ellie thread the needle she stepped back. Dina left the room, and Ellie could hear her shuffling around backstage as she got to work.

\---

Soon Ellie was tying off the last stitch in Tommy’s leg. He hadn’t woken up at all as she had worked, which worried her, but at least his chest was still rising and falling with shallow breaths. 

Next, she raised her eyes to his face. She knew that she needed to assess the bullet wound there, but as she caught sight of the blood, Tommy Miller’s face morphed into that of his brother. She was back at that godforsaken basement, staring into Joel’s lifeless eyes.

Ellie gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, but the image was burned on the inside of her eyelids. Each exhale was chased closer and closer by her next inhale until she could barely breathe. She wrapped her arm around herself, gripping the back of her sling as the shadows closed around her.

\---

Dimly, she heard shuffling sounds that signalled Dina’s return to the room. Ellie’s eyes remained closed as she felt Dina crouch near her and cup the side of her face with her hand.

“Ellie. Ellie, hey. Come on, come back to me,” Dina murmured, her voice fighting through the fog in Ellie’s mind. Ellie felt her hand being lifted from her shoulder and pushed against something warm and soft. Ellie felt the thump of a strong slow heartbeat, in such contrast to the frantic fluttering of her own. She clung to Dina’s voice and heartbeat like a lifeline, using them to pull her out of the dark depths.

Ellie opened her eyes and saw that Dina was holding her hand against her chest. She smiled gently at Ellie, softly kneading the back of Ellie’s hand with her fingers as the haze cleared from Ellie’s eyes. Ellie’s mind focused on the spot between her hand and Dina’s chest. She took deep breaths, slowing her heart rate until it matched Dina’s.

Dina took a shaky breath. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

\---

Ellie looked over to Tommy again. This time, she saw only him. She surveyed his battered face, thinking back to the blood splatter when Abby had shot at him. It had certainly been an alarming amount of blood, but now she saw that the bullet’s path could be better-described as having skimmed across his cheek rather than punching through — while the upper layers of skin had been torn off, the bullet must have just glanced off the underlying bone.

Ellie felt another memory forcing its way into her mind. But with Dina’s hand in hers, squeezing gently with reassurance, she took a deep breath and let it come.

Joel had returned, but only his voice. And instead of the lodge basement, Ellie found herself standing in front of a dinosaur skull. The top of its head was covered in bony growths, far thicker than elsewhere on the fossil. _“Kinda looks like Tommy. Catch it in the right light, boom — Tommy”._

This time the image cleared straight away. Ellie looked down at him. _Tommy, you damn lucky bastard indeed_. 

\---

Together they laid gauze across Tommy’s cheek and wrapped a bandage around his head to hold it in place. 

Dina had brought a bolt of fabric with her from the backstage area. “I think he’s in shock. The only thing we can do is keep him warm and wait for him to wake up,” Dina said, propping Tommy’s legs up on the nearest seat to elevate them. She kicked at the fabric to unroll it, gathering a generous length and draping layers of it over him.

Dina stood, straightening her back then offering her hand to Ellie. She took Dina’s hand and was pulled to her feet.

Dina headed over to the side of the stage and Ellie saw that she had brought the bucket of water out from the dressing room. Dina held up the wet rag as Ellie approached, and started to gently wash her face. “There’s my girl,” Dina smiled as Ellie’s freckles emerged from under the blood. Once her face was clean, Ellie quietly took the cloth from Dina and returned the gesture.

Finally, they turned to face the rear doors of the auditorium.

“Let’s go get Jesse.”

Ellie slipped her hand into Dina’s and looked deep into her eyes. “Together?”

“Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less humour in this one, I hope you folks got through it okay.
> 
> With regards to my note at the end of the previous chapter, and in the words of Tyler the Creator: _So that was a fucking lie_. I swear, I had planned for fixing Tommy up to be like, one line. But by the looks of things, I’ve pulled another 1500+ words out of my ass to procrastinate having to write our girls dealing with Jesse. It’s going to be hard, but my boy does deserve his own chapter, so that’s what’s coming next to close out this fic.
> 
> Thanks for your support as always


	4. Chapter 4

Dina’s hand hovered over his body, as if not touching him would somehow stop this from being real. Ellie remained standing in the doorway, not wanting to step completely through and intrude on the moment. 

She watched as Dina pulled her hand back to wipe at the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. It was a futile effort — they were quickly replaced with fresh ones — and she instead moved her hand down to rest on her stomach. She stayed there, crouched and gently rubbing at her belly, for some time. When she did finally reach out and touch Jesse, it was to slide his eyelids shut with featherlight fingers.

Dina stood and turned to Ellie, eyes red and puffy. She tilted her head briefly, an invitation to approach.

Ellie stepped forward, letting the double doors swing shut behind her. “She found Tommy here first. Jesse and I were over at the stage. We heard noises and…” Ellie trailed off, waving vaguely to the doors behind her.

Dina nodded in understanding. Ellie could see that she was imagining how it had played out; her eyes flicked from the doors, to Jesse, to Ellie, to Jesse, to the patch of carpet stained with Tommy’s blood, to Jesse.

Ellie turned and walked the length of the lobby’s bar. Reaching the far end, she slipped through the gap to get behind the counter. She cast her eyes about the floor until she spotted her pistol lying next to a box of empty beer bottles, and stooped to retrieve it.

\---

Dina gave her a questioning look as she returned. Ellie held up her reclaimed gun by way of explanation then tucked it into the back of her jeans.

It took Ellie a moment to realise that she had stopped roughly where Abby had stood.

As Dina had done, Ellie’s eyes retraced the movements of figures only she could see. From this position, she could see how tight the angle would be if she were to aim at the auditorium doors. 

“He was just one step in front of me. If I had only been a bit faster…” Ellie clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. She had managed to stop herself from finishing the sentence out loud, but the words still echoed through her head: _I just couldn’t get out of my own damn way_.

Dina watched as a flurry of emotions twisted Ellie’s face. She saw Ellie’s shoulders drop and her hands start to shake. And she recognised the agonisingly familiar hitching of Ellie’s breath as she started to take in less and less air with each inhale.

On their journey from Jackson to Seattle, whenever Ellie had an episode they would stop and find somewhere to stay until the next morning. On those nights Ellie would curl into Dina, clutching at her clothes with trembling hands as Dina whispered soothing words into her ear. The quiet downtime allowed for Ellie’s exhaustion to overcome her fear, and she usually slept off the worst of it.

Their current situation gave them no such luxury, and Dina didn’t know what would happen if Ellie had another episode, so soon after the one in the auditorium.

“Hey. Ellie, hey. Come on. Don’t go there. Stay with me,” she said firmly. Dina stepped towards her, angling her approach so that she was blocking Ellie’s view of Jesse. Reaching Ellie, she grasped at her hand. Dina ducked her head, trying to catch Ellie’s downcast eyes. “I need you right now.”

Thankfully, this time Dina had caught it early enough that her words were enough to pull Ellie back. Ellie lifted her head and searched out Dina’s eyes with her own.

“I’m just so tired Di,” she admitted quietly, “we should have left a long time ago. Hell, we should never have even come here. I’m sorry. We should go home.”

Dina pulled her into her arms. “You go, I go, remember?”

\---

They held onto each other as Ellie re-centred herself. She started playing with the baby hairs at the back of Dina’s neck, and was about to speak when she heard Dina let out a small groan.

“Urgh, not again,” Dina moaned, abruptly pulling away from Ellie. Her face was suddenly much paler than usual. “One sec,” she added before rushing to the front of the theatre.

Ellie followed behind as Dina burst through the entrance doors, stepped to the side and promptly threw up. There wasn’t much Ellie could do to help, but she rubbed at the small of Dina’s back until she was done.

Dina stepped away from what she had brought up and leaned back against the boarded up theatre entrance. She glared at her stomach. “This thing really needs to learn to read the room.”

Ellie smirked at the comment and leaned on the door next to her. Dina focused on settling her breathing while Ellie scuffed her shoes on the ground.

“I don’t think I can dig a grave for him,” Ellie said after a moment, waving at her sling-bound arm then redirecting the gesture to Dina’s shoulder, “and neither can you.”

Dina nodded solemnly. She didn’t want to leave Jesse like this, but what other choice did they have?

Ellie pushed off the building and stepped into the street. She looked up at the skyscrapers surrounding them, reflecting the light of the afternoon sun. “Also, why is it so quiet? We didn’t run into anyone on our way back from the aquarium yesterday. I haven’t even heard any gunfire since then.”

“You know the Wolves’ big attack I was tracking? It happened last night, during the storm. They hit an island where all the Scars live.”

Ellie shook her head. _Figures. We’re in Seattle for three days and_ **_this_ ** _is when they decide to do something about their years of fighting_. “Well, let’s hope they just killed each other off,” she said, turning on her heel to head back to Dina. But as she looked over her shoulder, something caught her eye. “Oh. Well, that’s new.”

\---

To the side of the theatre was the back of a city park, inaccessible from their end due to a tall iron fence. Or rather, it used to be inaccessible — now, a section of the fence lay on the sidewalk, flattened under a fallen tree. They carefully picked their way over the twisted mess of branches and metal to the other side.

The part of the tree’s trunk that lay on the fence had been sheared completely through. It must have snapped over the top of the fence when it fell, then brought the fence down with it. The lower part of the tree had lifted clean out of the ground, leaving a gaping hole the size of a car. The snarled, exposed roots reached skywards. Clumps of earth clung at the ends of some of the roots, forming fists that shook at the sky, like they were cursing it for their fate.

“The storm must have brought it down,” Ellie mused, absent-mindedly patting the trunk. _You and me both, dude_.

Dina turned to her. Ellie could almost see the wheels turning in her head. And sure enough — 

“El, I have an idea.”

\---

They returned to the backstage area of the theatre to retrieve yet another of the increasingly-versatile bolts of costume fabric, checking on the still-unconscious Tommy on their way in and out. Dina laid out a length of the material next to Jesse's body, then together they rolled him on top of it.

The distance from the lobby to the park was not long, but with only two good arms between them it was a struggle to drag his body out to the street. At least the smooth fabric reduced the friction between him and the ground, and eventually they managed to reach the base of the uprooted tree.

They crouched at either end of his body, and together tipped the fabric so he rolled into the hole. Ellie used her heel to stomp around the edges. The ground was still sodden from the storm, and it didn’t take much to collapse the sides and bury Jesse completely.

Ellie patted at the back pocket of her jeans before remembering that Dina still had her switchblade. Dina recognised the movement and took the knife out from her own pocket, offering it to Ellie. She nodded her thanks and stepped around to the base of the tree trunk.

She used the flat of the blade to scrape off the upper layers of loose bark, then drove the point into the soft wood underneath. The combination of the awkward angle, unconventional work surface, and having to use her non-dominant hand gave the letters a crude appearance, but soon Ellie was stepping back from the carving to inspect the name.

**_JESSE_ **

“Gift of God,” Dina whispered.

“What?”

“Jesse. He wasn’t Jewish, but it’s a Hebrew name. It means the gift of God,” she explained.

Ellie looked down at the bracelet on her wrist thoughtfully. “Hey, is this like a...Jewish-only thing? Or is it alright if I…” she waved at the tree with her switchblade.

Dina contemplated the question for a moment. “We have to be buried in Jewish cemeteries, and only Jewish symbols are allowed there. But...they’re rules for what we have to do, not rules for what others shouldn’t do,” she surmised. “I think it’s okay.”

Ellie nodded and raised her knife to the tree again. To the right of Jesse’s name, she started carving the first line.

“Wait, fingers up,” Dina gently corrected Ellie as she angled her switchblade to curve the line. “You face it down for goodness and luck, up for protection from evil and negative energy.” Ellie nodded again, readjusting the hold on her knife and scratching in the correct direction.

Soon Ellie was brushing her hand against the tree, removing loose wood dust from the completed Hamsa. She stepped back, flicking the switchblade closed and returning it to her back pocket. They stood there, side-by-side, watching the sun sink lower and lower in the sky until it set over Jesse’s tree. Then Dina took Ellie’s hand and led them back to the theatre.

\---

The next morning, Ellie found herself back at the park. It was the blue hour — the sky had started to lighten, but the sun was yet to emerge on the horizon. The streets were bathed in a deep navy light which, combined with the wisps of overnight fog that still lingered in the gutters, made Seattle look like it was underwater.

She stood next to Jesse’s tree, tracing the scratched name and symbol with the tips of her fingers. She sighed and sat down next to the freshly turned earth. She disentangled herself from her backpack — a loose end of her sling had gotten caught in one of the straps as she was trying to take it off — then leaned back against the fallen tree.

She reached into her backpack, pulling out her journal and the pencil that she had brought from Jackson. Its frequent sharpening throughout their journey to Seattle had reduced it down to a stub, about the length of Ellie’s pinky.

She split the pages with her fingers, letting the journal fall open into her lap. She twirled the pencil in her left hand and looked down. The journal had opened to her last entries — the drawings of the ferris wheel and Owen’s Firefly medallion. 

Inhaling deeply, she turned to the next blank page, running the pad of her thumb along the centre seam to smooth the slightly curved sheet. She frowned when she realised that the thick, dark shape of the ferris wheel was showing through from the previous page. She paused, loath to waste precious space in her journal, but then shook her head and turned over another page anyway. She could always go back later and fill the unused space with song lyrics if she wanted.

When Ellie had gotten up a few hours earlier, Dina had been fast asleep in the dressing room. She glanced through the fence in the direction of the theatre, and the lack of movement suggested that that remained to be the case.

Reasonably assured that she wasn’t going to be on the receiving end of a well-meaning nag, Ellie reached up to the nape of her neck and loosened the knot of her sling. It dropped away as she shrugged her shoulders, the rocketship pin clinking gently as it fell to the ground. She pulled at the narrower strip of fabric tied to her thumb, releasing the end and unlooping the first few layers wrapped around her palm. She only needed to free her hand though — when she reached her wrist, she tied off the trailing material and tucked it back in. She transferred the pencil stub to her right hand and turned the journal so it sat sideways along her lap.

The pain in her arm had reduced to a dull ache overnight, giving Ellie more and more hope that they weren’t dealing with a fracture on top of everything else. Still, she tried to keep her elbow close to her body as she drew.

Building by building, a cityscape emerged from the tip of her pencil. It was a faithful recreation of her current view of Seattle as she sat by the tree. She lost herself in the sketch, barely noticing the sun as it peeked over the horizon.

\---

A sunbeam was slowly creeping up Ellie’s body as she added the finishing touches to the sketch. Rather than adding her looping signature to the bottom right corner of the page, she simply wrote **_Jesse’s view_**.

She closed her eyes and leant back, smiling gently as her face was bathed in the soft morning light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was tough to write, sorry. Thanks for sticking with me to the end.
> 
> If you’ve played the Life is Strange games, Ellie was having _a moment of calm_ in the morning at Jesse’s tree. Goodness knows that girl is hurting and needs one. If you need one too, I hope that scene does something for you. Writing it at 3am certainly did something for me.
> 
> [This gifset](https://missclayton.tumblr.com/post/625901893727748096/dinasbracelet-the-last-of-us-part-ii-main) [link updated] inspired the conversation about Jesse’s name. If you haven’t already, you should [check out their page](https://missclayton.tumblr.com/) [link updated, formerly dinasbracelet, now missclayton], their edits and photosets are incredible.
> 
> During my research I read that a common symbol in Jewish cemeteries is a tree stump or a broken tree, and represents someone who was ‘cut down’ at a young age. However I acknowledge that I am not Jewish, so please let me know if that — or anything else in this chapter — was not faithfully presented.
> 
> I’m a full-time postgrad student and this is probably a terrible time to pick up a new hobby, but I did really enjoy the time I spent writing this. I’ve read plenty of fanfic but never expected that I would write one myself. But when I finished the game I found myself constantly thinking about these two, and the thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote them down. That became chapter 1 of this fic, and somehow it just kept going from there.
> 
> And now, well...I would not be opposed to writing more. There’s a pile of amazing fics from super talented writers on this site already (believe me, my Marked for Later list can suddenly be only described as Ratking-sized), but if you enjoyed this piece, then I’d love to share more stories with you.
> 
> So if you’re up for it, I could continue to fill in what we missed in the timejump. I'm not sure I would be game enough to make promises on length or update frequency — you saw how long it took to get these chapters out — but what do you think? Would that be something you’d want to read from me? Let me know.
> 
> In any event, thanks for taking the time to read this story


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